When Actions Speak Louder than Reason
by Scraggles
Summary: After fighting against Lightning and Amodar in the coliseum, Serah's journey is altered permanently, for better or worse. A hastily written, re-written, and revised oneshot inspired by duplicates and DLC. Not exactly explicit, but still M for a reason - specific warnings inside. Farroncest, some quirky kink, and one-sided Alyssa/Serah


So I wrote the skeleton for this a while back and didn't account for rapid skips in pace or proofread too entirely much, but the end result satisfied me enough that I was willing to post. I'll go ahead and say it now: this isn't exactly what you'd want to read the kiddies to put them to bed at night, so you're officially warned, heh.

Since some may be offended by the pairing (Farroncest, though I'm not sure if it counts since this is based on the Lightning and Amodar DLC, where the Lightning you acquire isn't quite like the original) I'll say again, more specifically. Things escalate in this fic... quickly. Warnings include femslash, smut, kinky one-sided Alyssa/Serah, Noel bashing, crying!Serah, some inexplicit gore, and I don't even know if language is a factor. I don't recall writing 'wirty dords' in the dialogue, but I figure some is OOC enough for a warning anyways. It's really your call, though, and anyway, despite the fact that I think this fic is a bit twisted, I hope you enjoy.

* * *

Both Lightning and Amodar slumped in defeat across the arena, and so did Noel and Serah. Their battle had ended in little less than an impasse with slight favor being on the side of the latter two opponents, and Mog, as Serah collapsed to her knees with the conclusion, gestured frantically to the sight before his eyes. This action brought the pinkette's attention to her sister's defeated incarnation as it coalesced into a crystal of pure white.

"Lightning!" she despaired, scrambling to her feet and collecting the woman's essence in her hands. Amodar's form was nowhere to be found, but this fact evaded the distraught sister's notice, even as the arbiter hailed their victory.

Worried, Mog chorused, "Kupo!" And he repeated this on end, anxiously hovering about Serah's head and hoping that he could somehow make things right, even though he knew Serah's torment. He'd felt it when the two first laid eyes on one another that the soldier's predatory gaze had ground her hopes into dust.

Despite the knowledge that her opponent had not truly been the _real _Lightning, Serah clutched this crystal to her chest as if it were her last bastion of family. In truth, it had been frightening to fight such a seemingly genuine imitation, such a soulless, grand farce – to be stared down by her own sister, which the woman may as well have been if the arbiter's insistence of her strength meant anything. That trademark ice-glare had _deveined_ Serah because it was all too real – as if they'd never met – and it hurt, even though she had known not to expect more – for _not_-Lightning to treat her as anything less than a target when she was _Lightning, _with the same walk, talk, _everything_; Serah could go on endlessly in vain, and it would only prove that Claire and this _Lightning _were beyond comparison. Memories came to mind unbidden.

"_If you really are a l'Cie, it's my job to deal with you." Those same cold, calculating, militarized eyes bored holes through her. The woman was dead-serious, and the only thing perforating the silence was Serah's gasp and frightened murmur._

"_Sis..."_

But this wasn't her _sis_, and that's what made it so utterly wrong. Tears of frustration spilled from Serah's sight and onto the crystal below as Lightning's tangible form dug into her clutches sharply. It had hurt, really hurt, to be reminded of her loss; to fight a shell of Lightning, it just _hurt_. Serah had to remind herself that this wasn't her sister just to keep a feather-weight tether to reality; she was a duplicate, and _duplicates_ didn't have families. They just _didn't._

But if she really believed that, why was it that she was huddled here, crying over a glorified hunk of glass like she'd lost her mother all over again? Just like that, her wails turned to torrid shrieks of agony, and her tears turned to rivers.

"Serah! Snap out of it!" Noel's dagger rapped against the coliseum floor, ripping her attention away from the crystal. Somehow, he had arisen from his exhausted flesh puddle to stand before her, and now he probed with urgency. "Lightning... she wasn't-"

"Real – I know, Noel; she's just.." Serah couldn't bring herself to be coherent.

Noel sighed at the interruption and finished, "A hologram, just like the Alyssa duplicate we found in Augusta Tower, the one that tried to kill us." He clarified, "Only, this hologram didn't need robots to do its dirty work."

"A hologram? How can that be true? I – I touched her!" Serah spat incredulously, angrily, sniffling. As Noel's hand threatened to palm the crystal, she guarded it closely at her chest, unwilling to release it. "What kind of hologram can fool a woman's own _sister_?" Serah growled. "She felt so real, Noel!" Her cerulean eyes spoke volumes of violence and bottled fury.

He had no intent to reason with her, not wishing to waste his strength on a vain effort. "What difference does it make? She's _not. _Please, tell me you don't really believe this, Serah; you're stronger than that, and we both know it_._" That was a lie, but it robbed her of the retort building in her throat.

She didn't respond. She didn't have the heart or the gall to lash out at him – to tell him he was wrong. They had several more fights in the coliseum to come, and Serah dreaded all of them, but she had to steel herself against it all somehow.

"Why don't we use her in the next fight?" Noel suggested tactlessly.

"Against Nabaat?" Now she had the urge to hit him and point out all the things that were wrong with that statement – not that she could succeed in that endeavor; Noel was an even match for her, and they both knew it. The only thing that would come out of an argument would be emotional hardship, and then they'd just continue on their journey, most likely without speaking. Right now, Serah didn't see how that wouldn't be an improvement, even if she knew deep down that Noel was only being a jerk because he cared about her. "Fine," she grumbled, morally destroyed, "but I lead this time."

Over the course of the next hour or so, Nabaat pounded them into the dirt, or rather the dust, since the arena was constituted of a glass flooring and clockwork chimes below, with the rest of the floor and what would have been an audience surrounded by empty stands and projected space. Serah had never met this woman, only heard of her from her sister, and this was before she'd met Snow, when Lightning often came home to her complaining about her superiors. Noel only knew this because Serah had suddenly gone on a tirade about it during their struggle, directing it mostly at their newest acquisition. It'd cost them the win, which was why Lightning was the last one standing, and thus the one to concede, however grudgingly, her defeat at Jihl's hands.

Noel, with his cheek forcibly ground into the glass floor via a PSICOM grunt's dirty boot, was made to watch as Lightning kneeled mechanically before the woman and kissed a proffered baton. As the words, "I have been bested," left her lips, Noel was freed, and Serah wasn't sure why this made her feel somewhat shortchanged. Maybe it was that she still hadn't forgiven him for being so callous, but as the soldiers around vanished, all but for Jihl, who laughed cruelly as she was announced the victor, then disappeared, she found herself disappointed.

Across the arena, the girl was gathering herself up with the help of a fresh puma summon when she caught Noel looking her way and glared. When Jihl had released her behemoths earlier, Serah had been knocked unconscious, and if it hadn't been for Lightning's quick thinking, she would have been flung out of the arena to her death by the beasts – or whatever else lay at the edge of this perceived reality. She was irritated with him for not preventing this. He'd certainly had the chance while Nabaat was openly mocking them, defenseless.

Noel stood and dusted himself off, gathering his blades from the floor. Being disarmed as he had been was disgraceful in his opinion_,_ but it felt good to have his sword and dagger in their rightful places again, and he momentarily forgot that they had been taken from him. He looked to Serah, who patted herself down, totally unharmed, and hardly believed that she had been brutally gored in the abdomen before. He remembered unwillingly how her pink garment had split open and spilled out blood as vividly as he did the horrible witch-like cackling that was Jihl's maniacal laughter as he'd switched on the defensive to heal her. Now it was as if they hadn't fought at all. Except for the fatigue, there was _no _evidence, not even a dust particle out of place to suggest that they'd ever been here. Even the locks of hair that he'd managed to sever from that awful woman's head in a close miss were _gone, _and if he hadn't known better – if Lightning weren't still there – he might have questioned his sanity, just a bit.

Noel trotted over to where they stood, relieved that, thankfully, the two – and Mog – seemed physically fine, even though he couldn't really be sure of how they managed it. The absence of physical injury was quite clear, minus a few scrapes and bruises on his and Serah's account from some less than friendly encounters with chocobos that they'd had earlier in the day; it was impossible to gather just _where _the other wounds had gone. He furrowed his brow, looking between them. Lightning had a split lip, bitten to oblivion, but was otherwise flawless. She seemed to be focusing on what was left of Serah's grievous wound – nothing out of the ordinary – in much the same he was.

"Serah, Lightning, you two alright?" he called, breaking the contemplative silence.

"Y-yeah," Serah answered, scratching at the back of her neck uncomfortably. She made a point not to seem offended that he hadn't appeared all that concerned during their fight, even when healing her. "My head hurts a bit, but I'm okay." In an affected manner, she turned to their charge. "Lightning?"

The woman crossed her arms and sighed. "I'm fine." It was true. Even her torn GC uniform seemed to have knitted itself back together of its own accord, much like Serah's had. It was like the battle never happened. Though, perhaps that was for the better. After all, a psychological blow to the pride never hurt any less with a wound to match.

* * *

Noel and Serah were alone now with the exclusion of Mog. After a particularly hard battle against the mutant tomato – this time without the assistance of Snow, Serah lamented - that had stemmed from their search for new artifacts in Sunleth, Lightning had been hurt, and Serah had let her return to her crystal form. Currently, she rolled the sharp rock between her thumb and index finger, staring into its depths as she listened to Noel's ongoing rant.

"Why won't she listen to me?" the boy asked, incredulous that Lightning was not amenable to his command. He was referring to their earlier struggle. Their previous squabbles had been forgotten for now, hopefully forgiven, but time-traveling and adventuring seemed to give them no end of fresh trouble.

"_Now!" Noel yelled, signalling their coordinated strike – but Lightning was still in a defensive stance, pulling off an admittedly impressive string of synergy-related magics._

_Serah charged up her bow in preparation of releasing a hail of arrows at the giant flan. The tension on the draw string was almost right; she released her shot and -_

"_Noel!" _

Slam!_ Serah glanced to the side to see Noel's form swatted out of the air just as his attack connected. A massive gelatinous arm flailed at him; coincidentally, she just happened to be in the way, convenient as it were that she was frozen in time. Lightning darted in at the last moment, saving them both with the sacrifice of her own well-being._

"_Lightning, no!" The monster's massive paw knocked them all to the ground, and Lightning took the brunt of the blow. Her lack of defensive capabilities exacerbated the damage dealt._

"_Move!" she'd yelled, and then she'd tackled both to the ground. Serah didn't have time to think about the compromising position in which they'd landed until the fight at hand had long ended, simply because it had taken so much out of the woman. Serah had spent the rest of the battle with cures and dispels to keep her standing, and so had Noel. Afterwards, the three were too tired for words. They lay in the same spot for nearly an hour before finally rising up and cleansing their wounds, a process that Lightning explained would be much cleaner if she were not dwelling within the physical realm._

"-and every time I change strategies, she's always a step behind. Haven't you noticed?"

Serah looked up from Lightning's crystal, then back to Noel, who toyed an artifact in his hands agitatedly. Really, she thought that he was the one lagging behind a step or two, but she knew better than to say so with him so close to being incensed. She feigned as if she hadn't heard him at all. "Oh, I dunno, Noel. Could you repeat that? I sorta..."

He huffed. "Yeah, I know; you were thinking about her again, as usual."

"No! Honestly, I just was thinking about what you said, really, for the first time and all," Serah lied. As if to prove her point, she held her breath until she flushed, looking uncomfortable. Then, he finally seemed to believe her.

The argument was over before it began, ending with a sigh. Noel turned his gaze away from her briefly. "You know, I'm tired." He reclined back into the grass, proposing they take a nap.

"Yeah," Serah agreed. She was exhausted. "After that battle, I could sleep for days." She sighed and mimicked the way Noel's arms crossed behind his head and his eyes traced the outline of clouds through the tops of trees above them. It wasn't long before the two were asleep.

_Next stop, Academia. _Serah's heart leapt at the chance to see Hope and Alyssa again – to see the future they'd made for their friends.

* * *

The trio and Mog returned to the city bearing gifts, three graviton cores, at Alyssa's behest. As Noel and Serah led through the streets, Mog followed with Lightning trailing after, and each traveler wondered at the scenery. Since their last visit, Academia seemed to have grown even more magnificent, with an unending stream of vehicles that Noel knew not how to name flying overhead, unregulated. Even stoic Lightning marveled at the immense vastness of the city and its glittering, glass-paned buildings, from which blinding sunlight was reflected in intervals of varying intensity. The pinkette squinted as a particular ray struck her, hurrying on to step out of its glare before another followed suit, infuriatingly enough. The Academy Headquarters was not much farther now, just one pedestrian congested conveyor away.

The four boarded the conveyor and allowed it to transport them unassisted until finally the doors of the Academy stood yawning before them. In a short series of hurried steps, Noel lead them into the lobby, and instantaneously, the eyes of all the Academy employees fell on them, more specifically, on their accomplice; Serah was first to pick up on their collective peripheral focus, tracing it back to the suited soldier at her back. The young woman ushered Noel to speed up, feeling a tad naked under the stares. A rearward glance caught Lightning studying her with a blank expression, oblivious to the glaring spotlight on them all, and as Serah returned to tailing Noel, she still felt those peculiarly cold eyes probing her. It made her want to run out of the room, all the eyes.

The Academy staff all sat in an odd stillness. Even Mog wasn't immune to the prying peripheries, giving an over-shoulder peek at them out of pure nervous impulse as he flitted about. This only seemed to intensify their interest, to his dismay. When Noel, Serah, Mog, and Lightning finally neared the valve separating them from Hope's well-assembled nucleus, the door opened of its own accord, startling the four. What next greeted them was almost terrifying.

Hope, standing on the center platform, laid eyes on them first with surprise, then disbelief. "Serah! Noel!" he greeted, "And is that.. Lightning?" He spoke reproachfully, as if he knew that his vain assumption could be only that, very, _very_ vain. Alyssa seemed to share only his former sentiment, surprise, although with more childish wonderment and curiosity. The blonde girl trotted around from her end of the walkway for a better view of this perfect replica.

She commented, "So this is Serah's sister; never thought I'd see her in person. Not very friendly, is she?" All the while, Lightning's cold gaze sat on her watchfully, following the blonde's every move with bare disapproval as Alyssa sauntered around before the soldier.

Serah chewed her lip as she witnessed the interaction, suddenly feeling even more anxious than before and wishing they hadn't come after all. Another peek at Academia wasn't worth the tension, she found herself thinking. The sharp silence that resulted wasn't doing anything to disprove her theory, either. "Well," she said, "Yes and no." After a brief pause and a remorseful glance at Hope, the pinkette admitted, "She's a duplicate that we fought in the Coliseum." Lightning's stare intensified ten fold, and her lips pressed into an even less friendly line..

Alyssa was intrigued, oblivious to the hard look. "A combat duplicate, huh? That makes sense"–she gestured to Lightning's tense form–"Her personality doesn't seem well-preserved."

Hope sighed. This didn't bode well.

Unwittingly or no, the assistant had struck a nerve. Lightning's jaw flexed like a bloated rectangular prism, only less ridiculous-looking and quite sinister in omen. "It is my solemn duty to serve Serah in any way I can," the soldier informed tersely. "What's it to you how _well-preserved _I am?" A flash of livid green in her eyes was intended as a warning but came out as a threat.

It just as well could have been both. The oblivious assistant startled and shrank away, fighting down a frightened shriek as she tripped over her own feet. Embarrassingly enough, she fell into Noel, who caught her and hefted her back to standing again; if he'd been elsewhere, perhaps she would have slipped from the platform and fallen into the abyss behind him to her death rather than making a fool out of herself. Lightning glared at Alyssa throughout the exchange, wishing that she'd simply fallen through Noel, even if it meant that she would have to rescue her, grav-con unit permitting.

After a few seconds, Alyssa's heart ceased trying to beat a pathway out of her chest. Panting, the blonde looked to Lightning with a newfound respect; the woman had almost killed her without so much as lifting a finger. With a nodded 'thanks' to the hunter behind her, Alyssa reluctantly turned back to face the group and averted her eyes from Lightning's form entirely, lest she speak again, or worse. All focus set on Hope for his reaction.

"So the search goes on," the director whispered, earning nods all around. Aside from his concern for Alyssa, he seemed utterly unmoved. "Very well. Serah, Noel, I'm assuming you didn't come here to talk about the duplicate. Do you have any graviton cores for us?" He cast a wistful yet respectful glance to Lightning, not wishing to offend her in the least.

"As a matter of fact," Noel said, "we do." He stepped forward, pulling one from his pouch. "At first we thought it was an ordinary fragment, but then Mog told us that they're made from the same material as the oracle drives."

Hope hummed thoughtfully.

With renewed energy, Alyssa chirped, "Let me handle that, then," she said, "The good old director is way too busy with all that supervision, you know." Before Noel could even respond, Alyssa had already taken the object from his hands – a bit too eagerly, in Serah's opinion; Lightning's gut feeling seemed to concur with Serah's, and she put on an even more pronounced frown.

Noel cocked his head. "Wha-"

"I meant to mention to you earlier, but you had already gone through the time gate when I sent word," Hope explained, "Handling the cores is Alyssa's job. I oversee the construction of the new Cocoon."

"Oh. Then, I guess she can take these off of our hands." Noel completed the transaction, unloading the cores to Alyssa. "We're still short one core, but Serah and I haven't been able to find a gate to Oerba yet."

"Don't worry, Noel; you've got all the time in the world. You've only been gone about an hour or so, and already, you're making great progress." The two continued talking as if that hour hadn't been a month for Noel and Serah, Hope eventually resorting to telling stories of Cocoon to Noel, and Noel listening intently; occasionally one would ask the other a question or two, thus leading their conversation down increasingly broadening avenues. Meanwhile, Alyssa lead Serah by the arm some distance away.

"We should talk, _alone_." The assistant insisted with a sharp look over Serah's shoulder upon realizing that Mog and the duplicate were following them. Serah traced Alyssa's pointed glare to the pinkette and moogle and understood.

Thinking no harm could come of Alyssa's seemingly offhanded suggestion and liking the idea of a private chat, Serah turned and called out, "Hey, Lightning?" The soldier perked slightly at her name. "Could you wait for me with the others?" The reaction was immediate disappointment.

The pinkette stopped short, supplying, "If that's what you want," and paused questioningly. "Is it?"

The lost, uncertain look she cast and quickly covered afterward made Serah want to shake her head, but she nodded swiftly. "I'll be back soon," she promised, smiling good-naturedly, "and if Noel gets on your nerves too much, well, I guess you can always come and find me."

Though visibly less than enthused, the pinkette pivoted around to rejoin the hunter and his new-found best friend with a huff. With a wary eye on Alyssa as she walked off, she threw the comment, "Watch yourself," over her shoulder, and paced away rapidly.

"And you, Mog?".

"Absolutely, kupo!" Despite his clear dislike for Noel, Mog agreed happily and flew away. Perhaps the boy was finally growing on him, but that could have just been Mog's utter adoration of Lightning shining through; Mog _was _a gift from Claire, after all. Serah turned back to Alyssa then, who was still busy watching Lightning's retreat warily. She glanced at the soldier's form in time to catch a heated stare between the two. Lightning was first to look away, nonchalantly continuing on her stately stroll.

"Someone's high-strung." Alyssa commented, forgoing her former malicious mien for a brighter, more playful one.

Serah begged to differ. She defended, "No, my sister is – or _was –_ always like that." She said, "My fiance – you've never met him – found that out the hard way when they got into an argument and she threw him off of the balcony the first day they met." Serah chuckled. "Luckily, he landed in a big bush."

Alyssa looked as surprised as she did grateful that she hadn't suffered the same fate. "Oh, so you mean Noel isn't-"

"Oh, no, no!" Serah flushed; she looked back to find Lightning standing idly with Noel and Hope, eyes on her. "I would never!" she insisted, sufficiently embarrassed.

The minutely taller blonde flashed a cheeky grin and began to canter off. "Well then I suppose you'd better act like it then, for his sake; your _friend_ seems a bit overprotective." She'd enunciated that particular word with a forced sort of cheeriness, and it only evidenced the dislike of what she was implying.

Serah followed along. "Who?" she asked, once again glancing to the quartet on the platform, "Noel? Mog? _Hope_?" She looked to Alyssa, who smiled even more cheekily than before.

"No, look closer," Alyssa urged, pointing. She drew Serah in and laughed as the soldier atop her index finger scowled and the young men on either side blushed at one tale or another. "Now do you see?" Serah's eyes widened with understanding; the pinkette nodded. "Come on. Let's go upstairs. You and I have some unfinished business to tend to."

Some small increment of time later, she and Alyssa were situated in an unspecified room of the Academy's nucleus, overlooking the atrium. Serah sat across from the blonde, chatting idly over the assistant's personal desk.

As their roving conversation gradually dwindled to nothing, Alyssa thwumped her crossed legs atop the desk, proffering up enough bare skin for Serah's perusal in doing so that the latter had to wonder whether it was legal; upon seeing the pinkette's eyes inevitably drawn to the creamy expanse of exposed thigh, the blonde swiveled in her seat there like the ruthless tease she was, eliciting a blush and a gape as gratification. Merciless, the young assistant eyed Serah up and down and grazed a row of teeth seductively across the full of her lip. "Like what you see?" she flirted, reveling in the even deeper flush that she was rewarded with from Serah's otherwise alabaster complexion as the other girl fidgeted across from her; Alyssa herself was of marble hue, and felt a slight warm rush wash over her as she smiled in turn. She always did like attention..

"A-Alyssa!" Serah gasped, "Are you sure this is the right time to talk about this?" The pinkette's pale fingers clawed into the plush arms of Alyssa's guest seat as she attempted to direct her focus away from the blonde's vicinity; she failed miserably – not surprising, given that Alyssa's form was, in comparison to the drab, dull green remainder of the room, by far the single point worthy of real interest. _You'd think that in five hundred years, they'd develop a decent sense of décor..._

The assistant director laughed, reclining into her seat. "So anyway, as I was saying before we were interrupted, you _are_ aware of what a duplicate is, right?" the blonde asked.

Serah nodded. "Yeah," she said, "For the most part, I am. In Bodhum – old Bodhum - duplicates weren't very advanced for a long time, just holograms up until about a year before the Purge, and when Lightning would leave home for GC duty, I kept one of her around."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." Serah smiled. "A lot of times I was stuck at home alone, until I met Snow. She looked real enough that I liked having her around, even if she'd walk through walls on occasion. The AI was designed by Snow's friend, Maqui, so when the solid models came out, we kept it." Blushing with a sudden recollection, Serah said, "I remember Lightning telling me how much she liked the interface; you can imagine how she reacted when it went around repeating 'Serah, I _like_ this interface' for a week and a half."

Alyssa laughed, looking out of her office window to chance a sour-faced soldier glaring at Noel. "And I assume she made that expression there?" The blonde gestured to the scowling pinkette below as Serah turned and squinted to see.

Another laugh peppered the relative quiet. "Exactly. Well, minus the anger, at least, and plus a uniform, if we're going for accuracy."

"Oh? Really?"

Serah nodded. "Mhmm," she said, "To differentiate between the two, we made the duplicate wear a simple sleeveless turtleneck and skirt – the basics. It was what Lightning used to wear around the house anyway, before she joined the Guardian Corps."

Alyssa then looked to the duplicate below, discerning that it shared that very same wardrobe. "So, you're basically using this Lightning as a life-size dress-up doll now, a replacement for your sister, just like you did the duplicate in Bodhum, right?"

Silence. It wasn't long before Alyssa fabricated an excuse to leave, gathering papers, and Serah sat in her office entirely alone, watching the interactions of Lightning, Noel, and Hope below via the one-way window on her left. The truth stung. She closed her eyes and sighed.

A minute later, the door sheared its way open, and heavy, deliberate footsteps trailed inside. Propped up on one arm, Serah dragged her hand across her face. _Not _her_ again, _she thought. Talking to Alyssa was the _last_ thing she wanted to do now, at least if she wasn't going to talk business.

Fingertips grazed her shoulder. "Found you."

Serah turned to face the sound. It was Lightning. All she could ask was, "How?"

"Saw the harpy on her way out and told Noel that I was looking for the bathroom when he asked where I was going."

"_Harpy_?"So that was what Lightning thought of the blonde. Serah approved.

"Yeah. Said she'd be a while getting back." She gave a husky laugh. "Why don't we have some fun in the meantime?"

The look in her eyes made Serah blush for the umpteenth time that day. "I – did you just _proposition_ me?"

"You say that like it's a crime." The woman smirked and leaned down to her level, whispering, "Well, what do you say?"

Before Serah really knew what was happening, one thing led to another, and she found herself screaming at the _unspeakable_ activities going on beneath her skirt. Her shorts, worn for modesty, hung loosely around one ankle, and her underwear stretched to accommodate a foreign apparatus burying itself to the hilt inside of her without mercy. The feeling, it was.. _sudden_.

"Why haven't you dismissed me yet, Serah?" Lightning taunted, holding the pinkette's gaze captive until the girl could no longer stand to look at her over the embarrassment of it all. She grunted, then captured Serah's upturned lips with a smirk, forcing her further back against Alyssa's office door as her free hand roamed between everywhere and nowhere.

Serah's eyes creaked open for a moment before squeezing shut again at the furious pace with which the hand between her thighs was working. She knew that the feelings swirling around within her were wrong, the ones begging for Lightning, her sister, or at least her image, to take her even harder than she was now, and still, she couldn't bring herself to breathe a word of dissent, only hollow gasps of the name.

"Huh?" The soldier's breath was hot in Serah's ear, almost as hot as the middle and ring fingers ramming her conscience into oblivion, and Lightning let out a sultry growl that was more a smirk breathed to life than anything.

Serah forgot how to speak; Lightning's mouth was adhering itself at the juncture between her neck and collarbone, leaving behind sensitive splotches that would undoubtedly form bruises later, and she couldn't think straight, not with the wonderful things she was doing with her hands; Etro, the woman was _wonderful_ with her hands.

"Lightning," Serah mewled, grasping at anything and everything that wasn't _her -_ the door frame, the wall, her clothes, herself, "Don't stop." She shuddered. Those eyes were on her. She couldn't move, too tense to do anything but shiver and shake as she bit down hard on her tongue; Lightning didn't seem to mind.

She rewarded each hiccupping, half-formed thought to slip between Serah's teeth with another torturous, twisting thrust within her, reveling in the way Serah's hips gyrated involuntarily when she pulled back, only to laugh as the girl sank down on her slick fingers, drawing her back inside, where she was most wanted. Serah's knees buckled when she withdrew, and her ceruleans flashed with silent permission in response to the hesitant – in the sense that Lightning _did_ want Serah's approval beforehand – fingerpads tugging at the panties they'd both been itching to rid her of. They were removed in a single, fluid motion, puddling on the floor beside the previously discarded shorts, and yet Lightning remained crouched before her more delicate half, the promise of something devious and unknown glinting in her stare. With her gaze and Serah's locked, she smiled at the wet trail already left in her wake between Serah's legs, and then dove in.

Hands were fisting her hair in an instant, drawing her closer as Serah jolted and bucked against the new sensation, Lightning's mouth upon her, kissing all the things that caused her to flush and profane in excess. Her lips were exquisite, and Serah stifled a scream. Meanwhile, an index snaked its way into her core, and she threw her head back with something much more meaningful, the name. "Lightning!"

All caution was flung to the wind, along with her decency, what little of it that wasn't obscured by Lightning's tongue teasing everything she had to bare as a second digit joined the first in tight rhythm. Briefly, the woman released her captive to the tune of sopping wet, suctioned skin's sweet pop, only to whisper, "I want to see more of you – more than Noel or anyone else will ever see."

With one arm curled around the thigh thrown over her shoulder, Lightning meticulously undid the buttons and buckles holding Serah's outfit to her form, and as the last of Serah's meager clothing fell to the floor, felt her tremble. Words left her lips in the form of obscured, throaty moans, some coherent, most not. A third finger entered the mix, and her voice became strangled amongst a sea of convulsions that stole her breath away. She squeezed Lightning so hard that it hurt, and it hurt so good.

When it was over, after Serah had ridden it all down and collapsed in a heap, Lightning stood her back up again, showering her in soft kisses and painting streaks along her body as she worshipped it accordingly, casting a glance to the clothing that had been so carelessly tossed away not long after she finished. "I think you should get dressed," she offered, then pressed her lips to Serah's a final time, "You and I are a mess."

Lightning was right; Serah was limp, her posture akin to that of a wet noodle, and Lightning herself, though she was smiling like the cat that had just eaten the chocobo chick, looked like her hair had gotten into a fight with an industrial-grade fan. Somewhat overwhelmed by their proximity and feeling immensely overworked, Serah looked down to the grouping of garments below, all hers, and it was impossible not to notice the sheen of sweat upon them both. Very quickly, her bashful nature overcame her, and she soon found herself blushing heatedly, more so than she had earlier, at how easily she'd given herself to Lightning, and at where she'd done it, Alyssa's personal office, which now smelled of hot, musky sex; the assistant was due back any minute, she realized, and so she gathered up what few strips of clothing she could, pleading for a little help when it refused to cooperate.

By the time she was half-dressed, she could hear Alyssa's skipping gait ringing out from the stairs below, and the grander part of her conscious mind wondered just how much anyone might have heard from their earlier romp, how many times she'd called Lightning's name. "Faster!" Serah whispered as the footsteps grew nearer and her cheeks flushed with the realization she she'd yelled that exact phrase too, at least twice. She was attempting to tug up her underwear, but the saturated cotton article wouldn't have any of it, and the more she tried to yank it into compliance, the more the thing bunched up in a twist at her thighs. Alyssa was almost at the door; Serah could hear her humming a familiar tune as she made her jaunty way closer and closer.

"Just take them off and keep your legs crossed, Serah," Lightning hissed, fixing the last few buckles along Serah's outfit so that it wouldn't fall open if the girl so much as breathed too hard.

"What?" Serah yanked furiously at her waistband to no avail, then gasped when her underwear were unceremoniously stripped away for a second time and stowed away in the soldier's leg-pouch.

"Sit down," Lightning instructed, ushering Serah towards the only other chair in the room besides Alyssa's own, then smoothing her hair out into a reasonable shape and leaning back into a nearby book-case as casually as if she'd been standing there all along. For Serah, it was just in time. As she tugged her skirt down frantically, Alyssa, right on schedule, strode in with a stack of paperwork and a small tablet-computer, making a beeline for her desk before the Farrons' presences even registered in her mind.

"Hello," she sang when Serah cleared her throat uncomfortably, plopping down in her seat and spinning a full three-hundred-sixty degrees before eying them both. "I brought good news from the director," she said, "Looks like we'll be able to save your friends from the pillar." Despite sounding so cheerful, she studied the two extensively, sensing _something _different about their dynamic, some secret that shone on their faces. Her deep sapphires lingered first on Lightning's mussed hair, and then on the exceedingly modest, insecure way Serah presented herself and the sheepish smile that both wore. _Since when did Lightning smile? _Despite not knowing her well, Alyssa had the feeling that it was not very often, especially from the Director's tales of her. Upon closer examination, Alyssa concluded that the woman was smirking – _how smug; definitely something going on here, but I can't quite put my finger on it just yet._

Serah cleared her throat a second time, her voice a little squeakier than usual as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Er, yeah, Alyssa, that's great news," she edged out, keeping her folded hands firmly in place on her lap. The response was strikingly offbeat, awkward, and late.

Now this was weird; Alyssa glanced between both women, suddenly recalling that the taller of the two hadn't been in her office when she'd last been here. In fact, Alyssa had specifically asked to have a solo meeting with Serah.

_Something_ wasn't right. Thus, she semi-innocently played the card of concern, asking, "Is everything alright, Serah? You look a bit flustered." For an afterthought, that was an understatement. As soon as the blonde opened her mouth, Serah turned a full five shades redder.

_Am I really that obvious? _Serah almost wondered aloud, her mouth gaping. A chuckle from Lightning had been enough to make her shut her trap, and she made a mental note to punish the woman later. "N-no, it's nothing like that"–she nearly growled between sentences–"Um, I just.. I'm really excited about getting Fang and Vanille out of that pillar; that's why I'm so, well, you know."

Alyssa laughed. "Seems reasonable enough on its own, but something smells fishy here you two," she said honestly. Lightning and Serah exchanged glances, Serah's irritated and Lightning's faintly apologetic. "I'm not just talking about the air either." _Because, frankly, it smells like two stray cats got loose in here – pun intended – and I get the feeling that you two aren't being entirely truthful._

Now this fired Serah up, she stood a bit hastily, anxious to leave, but the area below her waist was decidedly drafty, especially since it was still damp. Courtesy was the only thing keeping her from running out of the room at this point – _so embarrassing; where's a good distraction when you need it?_ - and she only took a second to bid goodbye. "Alright, it's been great seeing you," she quickly spouted off, "but Noel and Lightning and I should really be goi-"

"Take this with you." Alyssa proffered a sheaf of paper. "It's a list of the remaining artifacts and their coordinates; it should help out a lot in your travels."

"O-oh, thank you." Serah accepted the list, albeit a bit awkwardly. As she and Lightning made their hasty exit, she silently prayed that they wouldn't have to navigate any reflective surfaces. In her state, that would be unwise, but Alyssa swore as the door closed behind them that something _was_ _off_. Either her eyes were tricking her, or Serah had been going commando. The two continued out into the atrium under her watchful eye, and she waited a moment before standing. One area of her office intrigued her, the bookcase where Lightning had been standing. Some two feet away, she thought she spied a rumple of black.

"Hmm, I wonder..." Alyssa approached the bundle and squatted for inspection, plucking it up with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. What she saw surprised her; these were the cast-off, heady-scented, sweaty shorts of Serah's, just like she'd suspected after first seeing them in their earlier discussion. A satisfied smirk came to her lips. _No denying it now, Farron._

Twirling the shorts in hand, she took one sniff of the pure arousal on them and grinned – _still warm and smelling fresh, I see. I knew she'd beaten me to the punch as soon as I pinned down the smell, that Lightning. Excellent find, Alyssa. This will go nicely with your collection. _A deviant's smile graced her lips and she chuckled.

"Now, one last thing..." Her focus roamed the room for another tell-tale bundle of cloth, and when she found none, she sauntered over to the guest chair, where Serah had sat. Sure enough, as expected, there was a tell-tale imprint of Serah's voluptuous bottom, coupled with the_ essentials_ embossed in sweat, among other things. Alyssa ran her fingers along a certain line, then took a taste, smiling with an obsessed sort of self-pleasure. Below, she watched as Serah left with Noel and the rest of her entourage in tow whilst straining very pointedly at her skirt. If it weren't so damned funny, Alyssa would almost feel sorry for the girl. Instead, however, she resolved to find her stash of cotton swabs, prepared especially for such an incident; certain experiments were in order.

* * *

Despite her predicament, somehow, Serah managed to endure their walking tour of Academia's business district without making a total fool of herself. "It's all so beautiful," she said, chancing all the storefronts; each was filled to the brim with customers, all caught up in their own worlds, "Even prettier than Eden!" Her tight smile was an obvious farce, and she was sure that everyone other than Noel was aware of it. Though, perhaps that was just her justifiable paranoia setting in.

"Huh? Where's that?" Noel asked. He'd forgotten that Serah was from another world and another time until she responded nervously, as if he'd just walked in on her frantically grinding herself to oblivion, lying spread-eagle beneath a blanket and immersed in some embarrassing fantasy or other. Of course, Noel, being oblivious, assumed that she was merely caught off guard by his lack of knowledge, not that she'd just recently been ravaged by their newest acquisition in an Academy official's office, or the painfully obvious lack of panties she was suffering through at this very moment. The latter two offenses _had_ to have been illegal, Serah reasoned.

"It's – or it _was_ – Cocoon's capital city, back before the Fall," she supplied, keeping pace behind him. This was difficult, as her skirt absolutely refused to fall at a decent height. She gritted her teeth and thanked the heavens above that none of the other pedestrians were even remotely interested in her. If they so much as glanced in her direction, the scandal would be uproarious – time-traveler tushie for all to see. She imagined the headlines high up on electronic billboard displays, coupled with uncensored snapshots of her exposed rear.

"Oh? What was it like?" He searched the surrounding skyscrapers for imagery, straining his neck to see. If she weren't so preoccupied with keeping a steady death-grip on her skirt, lest it roll half-way up her midsection, she would have wondered if he'd ever seen functional civilization before their last visit. She had half a mind to tell him about her earlier plans to go to college in Eden back on Cocoon, that it was a metropolis much like Academia was and that the university there was the most prestigious on Cocoon, but then again, Noel had no concept of metropolises and probably didn't know the meaning of colleges, schools, education, or what _prestigious_ even meant, so she settled for something simpler, even if it was half a lie.

Serah laughed like she'd just been confronted with a calculus problem that the world knew she couldn't solve, humorously enough. "Well, it was really pretty, with lots of flowers everywhere, and not nearly as many lights and tall buildings. There were lots of streets that were made of glass-"

Now Noel was incredulous, and like any time when he couldn't believe his ears, he didn't hesitate to run over her. "That's crazy. Wasn't it dangerous?" he interrupted. Never having seen any glass other than the fragile stuff they'd used for adornments in his village, he couldn't believe that the material would stand up to traffic.

She half-lied again. "Well, no one really thought much of it until an Adamantoise found its way into Eden hall and fell through the floor. It was when he and my sister were l'Cie with Fang, Vanille, and the others." Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Lightning clutching her chest, where she instantly recognized that a brand must have been.

For about a split-second, Serah didn't think about the way the draft was hitting her intimate bits. She didn't really want to go through the awkward process of telling Noel that she'd actually experienced this event – seen it by way of telepathic connection to Snow's token, the crystal tear he held on throughout the journey, which somehow led Serah to see and feel all these things he and the other l'Cie did.

"Wow."

"Yeah. But back to the glass – it wasn't really that bad; they had flying cars too, just like they do here, only slower."

"Cars?" They kept walking along, and Serah had to explain to Noel exactly what cars were, how they worked, and why they were important. It had taken several gestures to the aerial highway for him to register what she meant. When she finished, his eyes widened in understanding, and he took in the flying vehicles overhead with an all new respect. "So _that's _what those are. I was beginning to wonder."

Serah giggled honestly for the first time since they'd started out into the city, unable to contain her amusement. "What did you think they were, silly?"

Noel's nose crinkled as he tried to think of a response. "Space invaders?" They both laughed raucously; even Lightning cracked a smile, and Mog kupo'ed merrily.

"Wishful thinking, Noel. Speaking of space invaders, I wonder if we can find Chocolina here. I haven't seen her since we were in ten AF." Her voice grew quieter towards the end of that thought as she became conscious of herself again. The nun-like, prudish school girl within her was screaming bloody murder in protest of her indecency, and just like that, she found herself wanting to hide away in a dark alleyway and knit together a garment of fig leaves while she still had the chance.

Time ticked by under close watch by Serah to that tune. They didn't run across Chocolina, even after an hour of searching. Perhaps better than encountering her, however, was bumping into Amodar, or rather Captain Cryptic. Noel's face lit up like that of a kid in a candy store as soon as he saw the man, and he took off running for him. Spying a chance to separate from him and Mog at last, Serah made a break for a dark corner.

"Lightning, over here!" she hissed, tugging the gunblade wielder off from the main street and away from Noel and his quizzing spree. She left the boy and Mog out in front of a clothing store with the captain and dragged the woman off to a secluded corner of the overlook, somehow escaping the notice of other passersby. Once she was satisfied that she and Lightning were entirely alone, she asked, "What was that about, at the Academy?" Her cheeks heated up with the memory, but curiosity got the better of her – that and maybe a bit of irritation behind it.

"What, specifically?" There was that lightly intrigued look that Lightning – the real Lightning, Serah's sister – so often wore when she was confused. "Almost thrashing the assisstant director, or your underwear? You can have those-"

"No, not that," Serah cut in. As much as she hated to admit, their little moment had sidled itself at the forefront of her mind. Though, as soon as she realized the words that had come from her mouth shouldn't have been her first priority, she bashfully added, "But I could use those back too, if you don't mind."

For once, the soldier was the one blushing; that was a rare sight. "Oh, you mean..." She trailed off, eyes glazing over at Serah's contours before diverting themselves up to her frazzled hair. She'd made that mess, she recalled, and her cheeks heated even more profusely in turn. There hadn't been any professions of love or any mushy sentimentality about what they'd done, she recalled somewhat numbly; whether that was acceptable or not didn't seem appropriate to ask at the time.

"Yeah," Serah intoned as she fidgeted about, still clutching to the fabric of her skirt. She knew all too well how ridiculous she must have looked walking around town this way in a fruitless attempt to cover her own ass. A miserable sort of frustration set in, and, for no apparent reason, she felt her eyes watering. "I had no idea you.. Why didn't you give some indication that – you know what I mean." She wasn't angry, far from it, and vaguely, uselessly wondered if Fang had ever had to suffer through this with Vanille, then pushed the thought away from her mind. Fang and Vanille weren't exactly the subjects of the matter at hand, she reasoned, and she wanted, _needed_ by some arbitrarily manifesting absolution to hear what Lightning had to say.

Lightning shrugged, more or less, blinking a bit. "It felt like the right time."

The expression afterward was hard to read, and Serah felt like a grade-schooler, crossing her arms and feeling unsatisfied with her answer, as if it hadn't met her unreasonable yet wholly undefined criteria. "But.. how – how long?" Her voice rang out much more childishly than she'd intended.

"Since we met." Lightning smirked, briefly engulfed in reverie of their battle. "You impressed me-"

"_That_ long?" Part of Serah felt nosy in prodding so much. "Why Alyssa's office?" she questioned, playing with the hem of her skirt. It was very, very breezy down there, she noted, crossing her legs for becomingness' sake. The sudden brush of Lightning's lips upon her own came as a welcome surprise.

"It was either her or me, and I figured you could use the release." A tease – not entirely unlike the _real _Lightning; she had the same humor. Serah was suddenly conflicted with feelings for a woman who paradoxically was and was not her sister, more so than she was already. The moment was interrupted with a shout in the distance.

Serah glanced over the soldier's shoulder and out into the street, the direction from which she'd distinctively heard her name being called, or so she could have sworn. "I think Noel's waiting for us. We'd better go," she said with an air of reluctance.

"Nn?" Lightning stepped back, craning her neck to hear. It was indeed Noel's voice. She reached into her pouch, proffering up Serah's underwear. "Then here, you should probably put these on while you still can."

"Huh?" Serah glanced down at the bunched up garment. "Oh, right; I almost forgot." With some difficulty, she tugged the panties onto her form, flushing. The dark fabric clung to her sternly, despite not being wet. "Thanks," she said, looking up to Lightning, "I guess we'd better go find him before he gets too worried, right?" The accomplishment in and of itself was one small grace among many.

The woman nodded affirmatively. All the while, a certain inkling of dread hung at the back of Serah's mind. What would her sister think of her now?

* * *

Fin


End file.
